Web APIs: A Step towards Greater Mobility of User-Created Data across Social Networking Websites and Their Implications for Research in Information Behavior

Abstract:

As Internet users are joining more online communities
such as Facebook and MySpace, they are also becoming
more prolific content creators. But unfortunately, the task
of managing and exchanging content between their various
online social networking (SN) communities remains
cumbersome and time consuming. This is primarily because
most of websites “lock” users’ data on their servers and do
not provide an effective/efficient data sharing and exchange
protocols. A better way for users to integrate and exchange data
across online SN communities is to use web APIs
(Application Programming Interface) – a mechanism that
allows a site to provide “back door” access to its content
and services via a standardized machine-readable protocol.
Any website can deploy web APIs to allow its users to
integrate data from external sites. As these new technologies and techniques become more
widely available, it will make user-created data even more
mobile. This will likely lead to some changes in users’
information behaviours.

Sponsor:

SIG USE 2007 Research Symposium, October 20, 2007
Mobility and Social Networks in Information Behavior